88 pages • 2 hours read
Jordan SonnenblickDrums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Starving in Siberia”
After Jeffrey returns home from the hospital, Christmas Break flies by. Steven spends most of his vacation doing makeup work, and Jeffrey’s hair begins to fall out from the chemotherapy. At home, Jeffrey is driving Steven crazy because the steroids he takes make him hyperactive, and Jeffrey demands a lot of his brother’s attention. Just as Steven finishes all his makeup work for school, he gets a bad flu and is sent to stay with his grandparents so that Jeffrey will not get sick. Steven is unhappy about being banished to his grandparents’ house, where there is no DVD player, computer, or PlayStation. Furthermore, his grandma “starves” him by only letting him eat bland foods like rice, applesauce, and toast while he is recovering. While Steven is sick, Jeffrey sends him his Matt Medic action figure to help him get better. When Steven finally gets home from his grandparents’ house, he calls Annette, who tells him that everyone, including Renee, has been asking about him at school. After fighting with his parents about leaving him at his grandparents’, Steven goes to practice the drums before bed. Afterwards, he goes upstairs and finds his dad crying over a stack of papers in the kitchen.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Pointlessness and Boy Perfume”
After seeing his dad crying, Steven decides not to confront him and goes back into the basement, where he listens to The Beatles until he falls asleep. When he wakes up, he goes to peek at his dad’s papers and realizes they are Jeffrey’s medical bills. The total amount that his parents owe is over $27,000.
When Steven goes back to school, Annette offers to tutor him in all the subjects that they have together. To Steven’s delight, Renee volunteers to tutor him in math, the one subject that he does not have with Annette. In band class, Mr. Watras tells Steven that he is happy Steven made up all his work and can continue to be a part of All-City Band since they will really need him for the spring concert. Although Steven is pleased by Mr. Watras’s comments, part of him feels as if there is no point to practicing for a concert if his brother may not live to see it.
Annette starts coming over most nights to tutor Steven. Although Steven appreciates Annette’s help and her patience with Jeffrey, all he can think about is the fact that Renee will also be coming to his house soon. During one of Jeffrey’s routine visits to the Children’s Hospital, Jeffrey’s counts are very low, and he has to receive blood transfusions. When Jeffrey comes home, Steven’s mom warns Steven that Jeffrey will be even more susceptible to germs for a while and so Steven should avoid being around people who are sick. That Tuesday, when Renee is supposed to come over to tutor Steven, Jeffrey teases Steven about liking Renee and for putting on “boy perfume” (158). When Steven opens the door for Renee, he notices that she is sneezing and coughing. She tells him that she thinks she might be getting a virus but came anyway because she doesn’t want to stand him up. Steven tells her he can’t let her in because she might make Jeffrey sick. Renee thinks he is trying to avoid doing math and insists that he let her in. Steven apologizes and says that he really can’t let her come near Jeffrey while she is sick. Renee storms off and yells, “Go ahead, then, fail math and be lonely the rest of your life” (161).
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Silver Lining”
At school, Steven becomes slightly more popular when word gets around about how he stood up to Renee. Annette is particularly thrilled by the story “for some reason” and continues to come over to help Steven study for his midterms (162). Nonetheless, Steven is still very worried about Jeffrey’s health and his family’s financial situation. He is also upset that he lost his opportunity to have Renee over.
Steven does well on all his exams except math, which he fails. When he gets his midterm results, Mrs. Galley calls him down to discuss his math grade. She says she will call his parents to warn them about the low grade before they see the report card and to tell them how hard he tried to improve his grades. When Steven gets home, he listens to a message from his mom on the answering machine telling him to call her cell phone. He decides not to call her to avoid discussing his bad grade and goes to practice the drums. After a couple hours, his dad comes home and yells at Steven for not calling his mom. He says that because Steven was “irresponsible,” he had to leave an important meeting so that he could make sure Steven had gotten home safely. Steven accuses his dad of being irresponsible himself, since he has not been spending time with the family or taking on his share of caring for Jeffrey. His dad eventually breaks down and admits that he has not been doing a good job handling Jeffrey’s diagnosis or being there for his family. After this encounter, Steven begins to bond more with his dad. Furthermore, since his dad is an accountant, he starts tutoring Steven in math himself.
One day, when Jeffrey is having a relatively good week, their cousins from New York come to visit. Jeffrey has a lot of fun throwing snowballs with his cousins, and their mom cooks a real “family-style” meal for the first time in months (173). As Steven is putting Jeffrey to bed, however, he notices how badly Jeffrey has been bruised from the snowballs, and Steven’s good mood is dampened by the reminder of Jeffrey’s leukemia.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
These chapters mark a turning point in Steven’s relationship with his dad. Since Jeffrey’s diagnosis, his dad has become increasingly withdrawn. He rarely speaks to Steven about Jeffrey’s illness or anything else, even when they are left alone during Jeffrey’s frequent trips to Philadelphia with his mother. When Steven sees his father crying in the kitchen, he is shocked because his dad has showed very little emotion since Jeffrey became sick. Although he avoids his dad when he sees him crying, he later confronts him about the way he has handled Jeffrey’s illness when his dad yells at him for being “irresponsible” by not calling his mom when he got home from school. Steven retorts, “Who’s the super-responsible guy who hasn’t actually talked to his firstborn son about ANYTHING in about four months? Who’s the pillar of reliability who has left his thirteen-year-old to fend for himself for weeks on end?” (168). He also accuses his dad of not taking care of Jeffrey the way he and his mom have been: “Have you been kneeling with him in front of the toilet every time he throws up? Have you been sleeping at the hospital with him?” (168-69). After this, Steven’s dad makes more of an effort to connect with Steven and give him credit for everything he is doing to help take care of his brother.
New developments also occur in Steven’s respective relationships with Annette and Renee. After working hard to catch up in school, Steven’s bad flu puts him behind again right before midterms. Annette demonstrates the strength of her friendship with Steven by tutoring him a few times a week in all the subjects they have together. The fact that she always makes time to play with Jeffrey becomes further evidence that she is an exceptionally compassionate and thoughtful person. Although Steven is excited all week about Renee coming over and even puts on cologne, when she arrives he instead demonstrates his growing sense of responsibility and willingness to protect his brother when he tells Renee she can’t come in because of her cold. While he resents losing the opportunity to spend time with “the girl of his dreams” (97), his action demonstrates that Jeffrey’s safety comes before anything else, even his crush on Renee.
Related Titles
By Jordan Sonnenblick
